Pre-Production Planning [Keelan]

Expanding on our idea

We have planned and decided on a synopsis for our short film. The film is going to be of a cyclical narrative. This means that our film will begin with the ending of the film.

Beginning - Our film begins at the end of the story. It starts with a view of a house, of which is on fire. It will be obvious to the viewer that there has been some sort of explosion in the house, and there will be fire coming out of the windows. As this would be very expensive and dangerous to execute, we'll do all of this on a piece of video editing software, such as Final Cut Pro or Adobe After Effects.
A man will then be seen stumbling out of the burning house, this will also include a 'flash bang' effect to communicate to the audience that the man is injured and disorientated. At this point in time questions will already be being asked by the audience on whom the man is and why is the house on fire.

As the man is stumbling he will stop and so will the camera. There will then be a POV shot from an unknown source whom will be standing directly in front of the man. As the camera focuses on the man he'll then get shot from the unknown character. As he falls to the floor, the camera will smoothly follow him to watch him until he dies, which the audience will know as his eyes will close.

Transition Between Beginning and Middle - As the man who has just died closes his eyes, we will use the video editing software to add an effect as if he were having a flashback. We then get a close up of the mans face, however this time the setting as changed. He's still in the same position however he is in bed. As he awakens he'll sit up very abruptly, and just as the camera smoothly followed him down, it will smoothly follow him up. Text will also most likely be placed on top of the frame stating something along the lines of "2 days earlier", this is to add context.

Middle -  We are now invited into the gentleman's house, here we see the man going through his everyday routine of how he gets ready for the day. We see several shots such as the man getting dressed, making coffee and eating breakfast. We'll use this opportunity to include various different types of shots.

To give the audience a feel of what type of person the man is, we'll see the man go about his average day. This involves him going to the dry cleaners to drop off a suit, and then going to several gambling shops. Whilst he is walking in and out of the gambling shops he is unknowingly being watched by someone. We will make a particular effort to distinguish this, we will have a shot in where you can see the man going either in or out of a gambling shop and a picture being taken from a professional camera. We will also distinguish the person whom is taking the photographs. Although we will  not see his face, we will see something to separate him from others, for example, an expensive looking watch, or maybe a scar.

Transition Between Middle and End - As the day goes on we'll see him having dinner, in particular he'll be going into a local fast food kebab shop. We'll then see him take his food home, and eat. Whilst he is eating his mobile phone will go off, this is where we will use a shot to peer over his shoulder, this allows the audience to read the SMS whilst knowing that the main character is reading it too. The SMS will contain a time and location of a meet. The man will 'freshen up' and then leave the house.

As we see him walking down the road on his way to the location we will create a transitioning effect to skip the journey. We'll then arrive at a location where the main character walks into a dimly lit room with a table. This will be a poker table surrounded by several men drinking, smoking etc.

End - At this point, the main character walks into the poorly lit room which will be rather empty. In the centre of the room will be a round table with three or four men sitting round it. One of which will be identifiable as the person whom was following the main character earlier on. The way that we hopefully try to communicate that this is the same character is by his watch, we'll give him a rather expensive looking watch to distinguish him from the other gentleman at the table.

This will be a perfect opportunity for us to use camerawork and lighting to our advantage. We plan to use several close ups to capture the players facial expression and to build up tension in the room. We'll use the lighting to make it seem dark in the room, whilst highlighting the characters faces. We intend to use very bright, intense and hot lighting to do so, this will hopefully also cause the characters at the table to sweat slightly, adding to the tension on camera. As the lighting may be slightly to bright we will use equipment such as lighting umbrellas to diffuse the light.

During the poker game, the main character will bet all of his possessions plus things he may not actually be able to give up if he loses. This is when he eventually loses the game. As the man doesn't actually have all of these items and cash at hand the other players agree to let him give it up later on.

Obviously he is unable to give over things he doesn't have, so he ignores there attempts to communicate with him, unknowingly they're actually ruthless thugs.

The next scene we see is the same as what was presented at the beginning of the short film. The main character stumbling out of a house which is on fire, very dazed. Again the man will stop, turn around and be faced with a gun pointing at him which will be again shown by a POV shot from the shooters perspective. However, what we now will see this time around is a POV shot from the main characters point of view, and also a long shot from a side angle of the firearm being pointed at the main character. The main character will then be shot from the POV from the shooters angle, and then the screen will fade out into the credits.